by Ted Russ
“Avery, you ready for Ring Weekend?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me hear the ring poop.”
“Oh my God, sir. What a beautiful ring! What a crass mass of brass and glass! What a bold mold of rolled gold! What a cool jewel you got from your school! See how it sparkles and shines? It must have cost you a fortune! Please, sir, may I touch it?”
The yearlings had been teaching us the ring poop since we had returned from Frederick. We were supposed to wait outside the mess hall while the firsties were given their rings at the secret ceremony. As they emerged to meet their dates for the weekend, we were to ambush them and recite the ring poop until they allowed us to touch their rings.
“Good. But do you know the true meaning behind the ring?”
“No, sir.” I had learned to recognize when he had a lesson to teach.
“Ever heard of Prometheus?”
“The Greek god, sir?”
“He was one of the oldest. One day he looked down on man and took pity on his nasty, brutish, and short existence. He stole a little bit of fire and ran it down to earth. Zeus found out and was pissed. He had Prometheus chained to a rock in the Caucasus for the rest of eternity. Every day a gigantic eagle would come and dig at Prometheus’s side and eat his liver. Since Prometheus was an immortal, his liver grew back every night. Every day the eagle would return. This went on for hundreds of years, until Zeus relented and released him. Zeus decreed that until the end of time, Prometheus would wear a link of the chain that had held him to that mountain, to remind him and the other immortals of exactly what had happened and what he had been subjected to.” The Guru looked at me for a moment.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Pass it on.” He suddenly glanced past us, to the rear of the formation. “Ugh. Without fail. The bicycling bastard arrives.”
I heard what had become the familiar clicking of Captain Eifer’s ten-speed bike. He made it a practice most mornings to ride up behind the company to observe our formations. The upperclassmen hated it. More often than not, a handful of them would get written up for uniform violations. The chain-on-gears noise alone was now sufficient to put the whole company on edge.
Captain Eifer was E4’s tactical officer, responsible for the discipline and development of all the cadets in the company. Every company at West Point had a tac, but ours was a tyrant. He was rumored to have written up more cadets than any tactical officer in history. There was no way to validate that, of course, but everyone believed it, including Captain Eifer. He was aware of his reputation and wore it like airborne wings on his chest, but he didn’t swagger. He was always the most precise and professional thing moving in the cadet area. His movements were efficient and unexpressive. He could scan cadets effortlessly and from great distances; his head would swivel smoothly on motionless shoulders as he wrote the quill in his head. The Guru told us of a time when Captain Eifer wrote him up for inappropriate uniform from the other side of North Area. Eifer had spotted the one button on the Guru’s shirt that was unfastened from over one hundred meters away. “No shit. I was guilty, and he got me.” The Guru shook his head with grudging respect.
Captain Eifer was such a force that the other tacs in Fourth Regiment let him walk all over their cadet companies. Whether it just wasn’t as important to them or they didn’t have the stomach for the conflict, they allowed Eifer to rule the regiment. Adding special insult to Eifer’s terror was the fact that he was not a grad. It was one thing in the eyes of the Corps to be a hard-ass if you had done it yourself. But Eifer was Ivy League ROTC: Yale. He had not been through what we were going through. Not only that: he was proud he hadn’t been through it. He was not impressed by West Point. “Anachronistic,” he called it when he lectured us. “A terrible way to create officers, cloistered as you are here on the river, alienated from the society you are tasked with leading.” His antipathy for us was so great, we’d wondered what he was doing here.
Creighton had set us straight: “After more than a decade of peace, and no real conflicts in sight, assignment to West Point is an excellent career move.”
Bill had nodded ruefully in agreement.
“I’m going to fucking barf” had been Zack’s response.
E4 was not only Eifer’s assignment; we were the main focus of his disdain. It was so bad, most cadets in Fourth Regiment believed that Eifer was on a special mission from the commandant to “fix E4.” The administration had viewed our company as slack troublemakers for years. Maybe decades.
E4’s long, slow divergence from the academy ideal was surprising to some, but cadet companies at West Point have always been potent alchemies of legacy, legend, and the now. You would never know, just watching the Corps in formation on the Plain; every cadet company that marches by looks identical to the next, but the personalities and culture of each one are disparate and stretch back into fuzzy and exaggerated prehistories. Captain Eifer was pushing against the full weight of this tribal identity in E4. We pushed back.
* * *
Turtle and I learned early on that spirit missions were a special emphasis for the Guru. One Thursday evening early in the semester he pulled us into his room for a lesson.
Clad in his distinctive robe and blowing the smoke from his cigar out the window, he held forth: “A spirit mission, gentlemen, is an activity undertaken by cadets that is typically somewhat against regulations yet demonstrates qualities that the academy supposedly seeks to develop: audacity, teamwork, creativity, and mission focus. The successful accomplishment of a good spirit mission enhances the spirit not only of the cadets involved but also that of the whole Corps and the greater West Point community in general.”
We smiled, completely under his spell.
“You have to be careful, though. Do not expect to be thanked for your service on a spirit mission. In the view of the tactical department and academy leadership, spirit missions are dangerous. Not to be tolerated. The higher-ups don’t appreciate the cadet perspective on motivation or justice. They will try to prevent spirit missions from taking place, and if they cannot prevent them, they will punish the cadets they can catch.”
He smiled his Loki grin and blew a large smoke ring out the window. “This persecution, of course, lends spirit missions a greater share of honor.”
He released another smoke ring for emphasis.
“We must aim high. The best spirit missions are too bold, too foolhardy, and too outlandish. They make a statement; they right a wrong; and they demonstrate that the impossible can be achieved. Remember, it was MacArthur himself who, as a cadet in 1901, snuck out of the barracks after taps and moved the heavy reveille cannon all the way across the Plain to the top of the clock tower of Pershing Barracks.” The Guru smiled widely, out of respect. He was inspired just talking about it. “That tower is sixty feet tall! It took the engineering corps over a week to figure out how to get the cannon down. Can you imagine? It’s a legend now.” He nodded to himself.
“Of course, if he did that kind of thing today, he would be slammed for destruction of government property and conduct unbecoming. He’d get at least a hundred punishment tours on the area.” He shook his head and looked at us earnestly. “In our time, spirit missions are risky and thankless. Nevertheless, gentlemen, they serve the greater good.”
FIVE
1215 HOURS, 1 AUGUST 2015
I sat in silence as Weber drove us back. “So, what did those guys want?” He pulled up to the TOC building and looked at me.
“Oh. Nothing. Just saying hi.”
Weber was a smart guy. An air force combat controller, he was Ranger-qualified and had served with me for the past three years. We knew each other well.
I returned his gaze with my best poker face. He rolled his eyes and smiled. “That’s nice.” He hopped out of the van and preceded me into the TOC.
This is crazy echoed in my head as I walked through the TOC to the coffeepot. I was amped on adrenaline and didn’t need the c
offee at all, but the ritual was calming. I stood in front of the pot for a few moments and slowly went through my process: half a packet of sugar, then add half a cup of coffee and swirl, visually inspect to make sure most of the sugar had dissolved, then add the rest of the coffee. What the hell am I doing?
I looked at my watch. Fortunately, there was not a lot of time to sit around and worry about what was next. It was time to talk to Pete.
A Chinook takes a crew of three to fly on a milk run: two pilots and a crew chief. In combat it takes five, adding two more crewmen. The crew is critical. They make sure the pilots do not put the ass end of the helicopter, extending about seventy-five feet behind them, into a building. They monitor external loads, manage myriad aircraft systems, and man the miniguns and other weapon systems. It’s easy to say that they are an extension of the pilots’ eyes, ears, arms, and legs, but it’s not true. That is too simple an explanation. Often it is the other way around; the pilots are an extension of the crew’s mind. In reality, no one is an extension of anyone on board a Chinook in battle. It’s more like a seamless quintet.
But right now, I was a wannabe crew of one that would probably not even remember how to start the engines correctly. Though I was still qualified on the Chinook, as a lieutenant colonel, my role obligated me to focus more on leadership and administration. I was rusty.
I stepped quietly into the pilots’ quarters and found Pete’s bunk. They were all sleeping, trying to stay “reversed out” so they would be fresh for the inevitable night missions. I gave Pete a nudge.
“Huh? What’s up, sir?”
“Can we talk?”
“Sure—what’s up?”
“Outside?”
“Shit, sir, everyone else is asleep. They won’t hear anything. What’s up?”
“I’ll wait outside.”
I left him grumbling in his bunk, went outside, and sat on a bench under a lean-to about twenty meters from their trailer. Pete Shephard was one of the most senior warrant officers in the regiment. As a warrant officer, he had flown thousands more hours than I, the commissioned officer, but at this point we were like brothers.
We’d met in Germany at what was the first unit for both of us. I was a second lieutenant, and he was a WO1. From that first day, our careers were commissioned/warrant mirrors of each other’s. We each worked our way through our respective career tracks while posting, repeatedly, to the same units. We cycled through Germany, then back to Fort Rucker, and then Fort Campbell together before being selected by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment the same year.
The 160th had been a goal for each of us since we’d graduated from flight school. The “Night Stalkers,” as they are called, were formed in 1980 after the debacle at Desert One. When President Carter asked for a military option for the Iranian hostage situation, Delta Force, composed of the best special operators in the world, was the clear choice. They would go in and rescue the Americans. The problem was how to get them there. The military had no dedicated special operations aviation capability, so they cobbled together an ad hoc unit of scrounged-up navy helicopters flown by marine pilots.
After the deadly failure in the desert, helicopter crew selection and performance was criticized and studied intensely. President Carter ordered the military to get ready for another attempt and to get it right. This time the National Command Authority turned to the army for the helicopter piece. The release of the hostages put an end to the specific preparations, but the Joint Chiefs regarded the aviation capability the army had built at Fort Campbell as too valuable to let it disperse again.
So they formed the 160th, the Night Stalkers, to continue to preserve and perfect the anytime, anywhere, any weather capability. The Night Stalkers were dedicated to supporting Delta, the SEALs, and other similar assets. From then on, U.S. special operators knew that, no matter how bad things got, the 160th would put them in exactly the right spot and would always come back to get them out of whatever pinch they got into.
By the mid-1990s, when Pete and I were trying to get in, the unit was legendary.
Pete stepped out of the converted trailer that served as the pilots’ quarters and walked toward me. I smiled despite my anxiety. Pete was not only a great pilot; he was a great-looking pilot. His lean six-foot-two frame, symmetrical face, and dark, wavy hair won him a lot of attention from the ladies wherever we were deployed. It also earned him constant abuse from the rest of us.
Pete sat next to me while I pitched him straight up and in simple terms. He listened quietly as he smoked one of his trademark Backwoods cigars. He always had a pouch of the cheap, rough-looking cigars in one of his flight suit pockets. His Ray-Ban sunglasses and those damn Backwoods cigars were the two things I never saw Pete without.
“Is this a joke, sir?” he said when I was done.
“I wish it was.”
Pete turned his head and stared out at the helicopters. He looked sad. I knew what he was thinking about. I did not want to make this about that night.
“This really how you want to go out, Sam?”
Pete was a pro. As close as we were, he never called me Sam unless we were away from the military and out of uniform. He never dropped his “sir”s.
“I think so.”
“You better be sure.”
“I am, Pete. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t try.”
“Really? Seems like we’ve lived with it for a while.”
“That was different.”
Pete just stared back at me.
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“I know,” I said sadly. “I almost asked someone else because I was afraid you would get weird about this.”
He shook his head. “There is no one else you could ask to do this, and you know it,” he said, giving me a weak smile.
“I know.”
“What if I say no? What if it’s not how I want to go out?”
“You and I will still be square. One hundred percent. And I hope you’ll understand that I had to ask.”
He nodded, looked away, and took a big tug on his cigar.
“I mean, what will you do if I say no?”
“I’ll join my buddies on a ground infil north to try to get him out.”
“You’ll never make it.”
“I don’t know. These guys have grown up to be pretty tough. They’re good at what they do.”
“ISIS is cutting people’s heads off.”
“And they have my friend.”
Pete nodded and stomped out the stub of his cigar. “You know I’m also pretty good at what I do.” He stood up. “Sir, this actually sounds like a pretty damn meaningful mission. Count me in.”
“You sure?”
“Now you’re going to try to talk me out of it?”
“No. I just want you to be sure. Don’t do this to balance any scales, Pete. It doesn’t work like that.”
“We’ll see. Besides, I’m a fucking CW5. What are they going to do to me?”
That made me laugh. There was no saltier dog in the U.S. Army than a CW5. “Beware the general with no ambition, right?”
“Whatever. You’re the deep thinker. Let’s go get your friend.”
“‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem to cover it.”
“You’re damn right it doesn’t. When we get back I don’t expect to buy a drink ever again.”
“Deal.”
“You said this was a single-vehicle-team insertion and then an exfil?”
“Yep.”
“I’d like to meet your guys, Zack and Turtle, as soon as I can to talk particulars.”
“Roger that. I’m going to meet up with them around fourteen-thirty a couple miles from the airfield.”
“I’ll grab a quick shower and join you.”
“What about a crew?”
“Let me worry about that,” Pete said, smiling. “Couple of those guys owe me big-time.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“They don’t want you to, either.”
I looked at my watch. It was 1335 hours. We were burning daylight quickly.
* * *
I walked back toward the operations center trying not to think about that night. I tried to push it aside and focus on my next task, but it was futile. I was pulled back to just before midnight on January 7, 2002.
Our aircraft had throbbed like a locomotive as we climbed up the mountain two hundred feet above its surface. The engine temperature indications had been in the red for eighteen minutes. We were high and we were heavy as we flew toward our destination. There was no avoiding the engine abuse.
LZ Troy was 11,347 feet above sea level. Our payload was Boxer 25, a fully equipped Special Forces A Team. They were packing heavy with no idea when they would be pulled off the mountain.
By that time we were used to the challenges of high-altitude flying. We had learned how long the aircraft’s systems could take such brutal punishment. The engines could be operated at those temperatures before causing damage for another twelve minutes.
We would be at the LZ in nine.
“Hammer 22, this is Raven 21, approaching LZ Troy. Requesting status,” Pete transmitted over the VHF radio.
Hammer 22 was an AC-130 gunship orbiting five thousand feet above us. They had been on station for several hours observing the LZs and supporting the two Special Forces teams already in the area. We had been monitoring the transmissions between the gunship and the SF teams. Both ground units had been in contact with the enemy since sunset, particularly Dragon 45, which had been in sporadic enemy contact all day. Hammer 22 was having a busy night.
Hammer’s imaging and targeting equipment enabled it to peer through the night down onto the LZs and other areas of interest with decent accuracy. We did not want to unwittingly insert our team directly into a firefight.
“Raven 21, Hammer 22. Be advised that we have not had eyes directly on Troy for two zero mikes. But it was ice at that time,” responded the gunship. “Ice” was the code word signifying that the LZ was clear—or, at least, it had been twenty minutes ago.